


Lines Drawn, No Quarter

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Love, Vignette, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-26
Updated: 2011-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 01:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pain is something he can live with. Guilt is worse, and it lasts far longer. Evan needs to do this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lines Drawn, No Quarter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt: "Lorne/Teyla, all he could do was paint"

All he could do was draw.

When Evan was six, he had gotten bored one afternoon and drawn a motorcyclist speeding off into the distance. That he'd done it on his walls had been less of a consideration to his parents than that he'd showed remarkable talent - for a six year old.

He'd never thought he'd be using his talent for line and distance for this.

"Colonel, he's in no condition--"

"Doc, we need his intel." Sheppard talks quietly, but there's a spring-wound intensity about him, like the man's going to shatter if he tenses up much more.

Evan remembers this from another place, another planet - another time when Teyla went missing on Evan's watch. Then, like now, it wasn't his fault, there wasn't anything he could have done. He knows that, and so does Sheppard. But there's no-one around to blame but Evan.

He'll take what he can get.

At least, this time, he can do something. Even if Doc Keller wants to wrap him in cotton wool.

"He needs rest!"

"He needs to get his information out," says Ronon quietly. The dark eyes fix on Evan's face, seeing what he can't say.

"He looks pretty bad."

 _He is the cat's father._ He takes a careful breath, deep as he dares. Even breathing is pain when the ribs are broken.

Still pain is something he can live with.

Guilt is worse and it lasts far longer.

"P...p...pencil." He manages to get his thoughts around his tongue, his tongue around the words. The memory of Teyla's expression as the door slammed between them is sharp and clear in his mind - a point on which he focuses, intent. She's a friend, an ally, he'd trust her with his life. She trusted him with hers twice, and twice he's failed her.

He won't fail her again.

"What? He can barely move his arm!" McKay's mouth stretches in a grimace as Evan's fingers close around the slim stick. "God, man, you're crazy."

Evan can't move his arm, but he can grip a pencil in them and move his wrist, and that's all he needs. He can move his arm across the white expanse, sketching the layout of the complex as he escaped. He can mark the walls he blew up to get out of there, the weaknesses of the compound, the route he took before they caught him and left him for dead.

He can give them the opportunity to get Teyla out of there.

As he finishes the sketch, a child's scream echoes distantly down the corridor, and a moment later heads turn towards the footsteps approaching the room. From behind the ring of bodies, Evan hears a low voice saying, "I heard that Major Lorne..."

But there, Kanaan of Athos falls silent. Ronon has stepped aside to show Evan in the center of the ring of men and the Athosian man is still, while his infant son wails in his arms. His adam's apple bobs as he swallows his despair, but his gaze is steady as he looks from Evan to Sheppard.

"Bring her back. Please."

"I plan to." The words are marked, almost savage, and Sheppard turns back to Evan and the map, a question in his gaze.

He doesn't need to hand it over; Sheppard's perfectly capable of picking it up himself. But he needs to do this - to make the gesture, to push himself. As Evan's hand lifts the paper, it trembles with exhaustion and strain, but his eye is steady on his commanding officer's as the man takes it from his fingers with a nod.

Words aren't needed. There's an unspoken message there, a collaboration born of common training, common friendship, common understanding, common care.

That she lives with another man doesn't mean they can't love her, too.


End file.
